No idea of the context? A young friend's death possibly? From a mid-1820s manuscript. I must admit I immediately thought of Clare's return to Northborough in 1841, it being three years after Mary Joyce had died in 1838. But the poem is much too early, and the 'scarce lived out fifteen' line rendered meaningless.

Ive sung farewell in many a rhyme

to pleasures that are fled

& I have thought me many a time

oer [my loved ones] cold & dead

but little thought when thus I sung

[and wandered neath the moon]

to one so fair so loved & young

could find a grave so soon.

The daisy now three years hath grown

above thy bed so green

and hadst thou been as living yet

& thou a flower the fairest knownscarce lived out fifteenJohn Clare, Poems of the Middle Period

When day
declining usher'd to a Close& evening silence bid the world repose& deep'ning darkness hover'd oer the groveCompell'd (not weary with the joys of love)We fearless ventur'd from the blissfull seat& blest the night that kept us still discreetUnheeded home ward down the dusky plainI led my charmer to her home again

& as weak
troubles discompos'd her breastI vow'd to love & kiss'd its fears to rest—‘O do you love me? sighs the timerous maid‘Will you still come?—I really am afraid‘—O am I not Or am I to complain?—‘When will you come?—O will you come again?

[Image: Clare Leighton]Soon as the twilight through the distant mist In silver hemmings skirts the purple east, Ere yet the sun unveils his smiles to view And dries the morning's chilly robes of dew, Young Hodge the horse-boy, with a soodly gait, Slow climbs the stile, or opes the creaky gate, With willow switch and halter by his side Prepared for Dobbin, whom he means to ride; The only tune he knows still whistling oer, And humming scraps his father sung before, As "Wantley Dragon," and the "Magic Rose," The whole of music that his village knows, Which wild remembrance, in each little town, From mouth to mouth through ages handles down. Onward he jolls, nor can the minstrel-throngs Entice him once to listen to their songs; Nor marks he once a blossom on his way; A senseless lump of animated clay— In hobbling speed he roams the pasture round,Till hunted Dobbin and the rest are found;Where some, from frequent meddlings of his whip,Well know their foe, and often try to slip;While Dobbin, tamed by age and labour, standsTo meet all trouble from his brutish hands,And patient goes to gate or knowly brake,The teasing burden of his foe to take;Who, soon as mounted, with his switching weals,Puts Dob's best swiftness in his heavy heels,The toltering bustle of a blundering trotWhich whips and cudgels neer increased a jot,Though better speed was urged by the clown--And thus he snorts and jostles to the town.The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems (2 volumes, 1821)

From Helpston in rural Northamptonshire, John Clare was born in 1793. He is now regarded as the most important poet of the natural world from Britain. He wrote many poems, essays, journals and letters about love, sex, corruption and politics, environmental and social change, poverty and folk life. Even in his madness, his talents were not diminished. Ronald Blythe, President of the John Clare Society, sees Clare as "... England's most articulate village voice".
Clare died, aged 71, in 1864.